AN/... Chapter 3 now, thanks for all the reviews, I'm really happy people like this so far ^.^ and as always, enjoy!
Chapter 3 - Building a House
Wheatley POV - It had been a few days since the theme park epidemic, and I decided I'd forgiven Rick enough to pay him a visit later, after Chell left for work. But for the moment, I concentrated on stretching like a cat across the bed, and watching through sleepy eyes as Chell bustled around the room collecting her work clothes. I yawned and rolled over, falling asleep again. Mornings weren't my cup of tea. I vaguely remember Chell saying goodbye, and the faint slam of the front door below as I slipped in and out of consciousness.
The next time I woke up, it was midmorning and I decided to heave myself from the comfy bed. I groggily tumbled around the house, having a shower, getting dressed then roughly combing my hair. I grabbed a bowl of Cheerios, not bothering to make a balanced breakfast like Chell does at the weekends. Cheerios were good enough for me. I turned on the radio automatically as I passed it on my way to the sofa, and plonked into my usual seat with a happy sigh and a mouthful of milky Cheerios. Just another regular week day, where I could devote hours to do pretty much whatever I wanted. Munching my way through cereal was just the beginning.
With a burst of energy working its way up inside me, I put the now empty bowl in the dishwasher and returned to my humble position on the sofa. The familiar craving to play my guitar hit me, and I grabbed the old battered case from its corner with a grin, removing my trusty acoustic guitar and placing it on my knee, ready to play. I juggled with random melodies for a while, then began to piece bits together till I had a short composition. My fingers began to pluck the guitar strings with speed yet precision, and my miniature song came to life. I smiled, making a mental note to perform it to Chell later.
After writing down my composition, I played songs I already knew, just for the sake of it. For some of them, I sang along, despite the fact I'm an awful vocalist. Nobody was around to judge my voice at the moment, so I had complete freedom to sing my heart out. I play my guitar with a lot of passion, so the noise that comes out of it is always strong and loud. I could've done that for hours, however, I did tell myself I would visit rick today, so I should really. With a sigh, I put my instrument back in its hard case and pulled on my favourite shoes - my converses. I grabbed my mobile and keys expertly, flipping them in the air before placing them in my pocket, and walked into the bright morning sunshine. The sky was blue, the grass was green and the clouds were absent. Perfect. I didn't have the chance to stay outside for long though, because I soon found myself walking up Rick's front path and knocking on the door boldly.
"Hi," Rick said, opening the door for me to come in. I stepped inside his dark house with a grin. As long as he didn't force me onto any extreme roller coasters today, I'm happy to be with my best friend again. My only friend really, apart from Chell, but she's more like a girlfriend. I shook my head, shaking myself out of my daydream. I fought the urge to call Chell, and instead followed Rick into his cluttered front room, narrowly avoiding falling over an upturned skateboard.
"So, how've you been?" Rick asked me, throwing some tennis balls off the sofa and sitting down with a light thud.
"Not too bad, I wrote a new song today," I sat beside him. "You?"
"I went swimming yesterday, and jumped off the highest diving board, it was awesome! We should go together sometime though, it was a bit lonely by myself," I shrugged, my version of an unspoken maybe. In truth, I've never been swimming before, and I don't really know how. I would die of embarrassment if Rick found out I was a grown man and couldn't swim.
"Hey, I discovered something really fun the other day! Come with me!" Rick suddenly exclaimed, charging off into his garden. I followed, nervous at what dangerous activity he'd have me doing next. The garden was full of wooden planks, and I dodged around them, my expression one of confusion and anxiety. Rick ran up to the giant tree at the bottom of his garden, and jumped, pulling himself up onto the lowest branch. He scampered up the tree like a monkey, and pulled himself through a square hole in the wooden floor he'd obviously built prior to my visit about eight metres above the ground. Rick stood up, and beckoned for me to join him.
I'd never climbed a tree before, I had no idea whether it was dangerous or not, but I found it reasonably easy due to my abnormally tall height. I wasn't as fast as Rick, but I made it onto the wooden platform with no injuries. Also on the wooden platform was a large red box, holding a huge array of different tools.
"Do you wanna help me build a tree house?" Rick asked me, quivering slightly with excitement and anticipation.
"What's a tree house?" I asked warily, taking a few steps away from the edge.
"A little house... In a tree..."
"Sorry that was a silly question. Might as well, it would be safer than just this little wooden thing," I smiled, and picked up a piece of wood that was lying by my feet.
"Where shall we begin?"
All day. All day Rick had me climbing down the tree to grab planks of wood, then scrambling back up again precariously, one hand down. Occasionally he would ask me to construct part of a wall, and he allowed me to do all of the ceiling due to my height. It was tiring work, but when we both found the ground again to admire our handiwork, the tree house looked bloody brilliant. It wasn't so much a house, more of one large, wooden room suspended in the thick, strong upper branches of the tree. It had perfectly square, glassless windows, and a slightly sloped roof complete with waterproof covering to keep the rain out. I was proud of the roof, I think I did a pretty good job. Being as safety conscious as I like to try and be (although it was difficult when your best friend is as dangerous as Rick) I even built a little ladder up the smooth bark. The interior had been lined with blankets and pillows I borrowed from under my bed, and I had even stashed some food in there. We were all good to go.
As soon as we were seated comfortably inside our new den, Rick yanked a bottle of lemonade out of our food stash.
"Lets play spin the bottle!" he said, sounding excited and daring.
"What's spin the bottle?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. It better not be dangerous.
"We take it in turns to spin the bottle, and whoever it points at has to say either 'truth' or 'dare'. If I say truth, you get to ask me a question and I have to answer truthfully. If I say dare, you get to dare me to do anything you like. The same applies in a reversed situation, it'll be fun!"
"Okay," I agreed, making a note to always say 'truth'. Who knows what a Rick dare would be like.
The bottle landed on Rick first. He chose dare, and I dared him to pick truth, because I honestly didn't know what to tell him to do. He complained viciously, but obliged.
"Ermm... Question, question, question... I need a question. Errm... Hmm... Do you ever get scared when you do something dangerous?" I asked, wondering how such a daring person reacts in the face of very extreme risks.
"Pfft! Me, scared? Never!" he replied hesitantly. I detected a hint of a lie, but ignored it and passed the thought off as a figment of my imagination. Rick chuckled to himself, and spun the bottle. Conveniently for him, it landed on me. I refused to give him the satisfaction of daring me to do something life-threatening. He'd have me jumping out of the treehouse or something stupid like that.
"Truth," I said in my bravest monotone. I hoped he'd ask a question I wouldn't mind replying honestly to.
"Have you ever done it with Chell?" he asked, smiling slyly. My brows furrowed.
"Done what?" I asked cautiously.
"Oh my dear God, Wheatley do you even know what I mean?" Rick sighed with frustration. I shook my head.
"You know how animals make babies right?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yeah, of course, everyone does," I replied smugly. See, I know some things. I just didn't know where this question was headed.
"Well, humans do that too, but for pleasure," his voice was patronising, but I still felt confused.
"If that's for pleasure then how do they make babies?" I asked meekly.
"OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Humans do that for BOTH! Seriously, you can be such a moron sometimes!"
"I am not a moron!" I replied, slightly annoyed. Rick just sighed, and took a huge swig from our spinning bottle. I figured he'd given up playing this with me.
After our extremely confusing conversation, I decided to call Chell, and disregard Rick's lesson completely. I had never done that with Chell, and Rick knows that. We don't have any children, so it's kind of obvious! Although the conversation did intrigue me. I wondered what it would be like to do that with Chell, and removed the image from my head quickly, since it made me feel very strange down below. Stupid human emotions, I had no idea what I just felt! Chell picked up on the third ring, and a smile appeared on my face.
"Hi, Chell, are you alright?" I asked the same question with every phone call.
"Yeah, I'm fine Wheatley, you don't have to ask me every time we're apart. What are you doing today - it better not involve you and Rick breaking our furniture!"
"Nope, I helped Rick build a massive tree-house in his garden, it's really awesome! Oh yeah, and I wrote a song for my guitar this morning," I told her proudly. Chell laughed.
"Be careful then, I have to go. Love you,"
"Love you too," my tone dropped an octave with my disappointment. Hearing Chell's voice only made me miss her more. The line went dead, she was gone.
Rick grabbed the phone out of my hand, laughing, and motioned to throw it through the hole in the floor. I yelped with shock, then reached out for my mobile. He laughed, and whipped it away from me, lowering it significantly so it was directly above the ladder.
"Give that back!" I laughed, and pinned Rick down. His head now lay where my phone was a second ago, and for a moment fear flashed across Rick's face. I helped him into a sitting position, still laughing, and lunged for my mobile, pocketing it successfully.
"Oi!" he complained, and tried to grab the phone again. I pushed him off me reflexively, and he narrowly missed the open trapdoor again. Rick then decided it was time for a wrestling match, and attacked me as fast as light. I tumbled across the floor, rolling into the wall with a horrific cracking noise. I groaned, pain dully throbbing in my side. I ignored the second cracking noise, too dazed to care when a small piece of wood fell from the ceiling onto my chest.
Rick POV - I might have taken it a bit too far this time. Wheatley was groaning in the corner, there was nothing majorly wrong with that in my eyes. What did matter was that a piece of the ceiling just fell off, and a large crack had appeared. Maybe it was my imagination, but the crack seemed to be growing. I stood up, and made my way over to Wheatley. Every creak that the floorboards emitted scared the hell out of me, and I gingerly sat down next to Wheatley. All of a sudden a screw fell from the roof onto my lap. I looked up, to see that all the screws were loose.
"You idiot Wheatley! You didn't tighten any of the screws! Come on, we need to get out of here before the roof falls and crushes us!" I tried to tell myself I wasn't afraid, and yanked Wheatley out of the corner. I stood up, pulling him with me.
"What do you mean, I didn't tighten the screws? They're screws, they tighten themselves don't they?"
"Of course they don't you complete and utter twit! Inanimate objects don't do that! Now come on, before you get us both killed!" I shouted, pushing him towards the ladder, hiding my fear with anger. Several more screws fell to the floor, and suddenly it was raining with dozens of the things. When Wheatley banged into the wall it must have sent a tremor up to the roof, which made all the loose screws fall. A plank of wood fell to the floor with a bone-crunching thud, and the floor shivered uneasily.
Wheatley shoved me onto the ladder quickly, putting my life before his own. I felt touched by the kind gesture, but now I feared for Wheatley's safety. Whilst on the ladder, below the first floor level, I could see the wood splintering off it where the planks' impact held such force. I heard another thud, then another, as the roof collapsed in on itself. Our treehouse fell to the ground, as the floor gave way, flinging Wheatley towards the floor at an alarming speed. I lunged for him, and grabbed his hand. He yelped, and tried to scramble onto the ladder with me. A piece of wood landed square in his stomach, and the impact knocked the rung I was gripping on the (Wheatley-made) ladder give way. Luckily I had made some downwards progress before I had to catch Wheatley, and it wasn't as far a fall to the ground as it could have been. It still hurt like hell though.
Wheatley landed with a thud a few metres from me, and groaned loudly.
"Owww," he moaned into the grass, rubbing his head and side simultaneously.
"You okay Rick?" he called across to me. At that exact millisecond, the final piece of our treehouse plummeted from its previous eight metre height, and landed across both my shoulders. I screamed in agony, hearing the crack as it crushed my collarbone. Wheatley got to his feet, and wobbled unstably over to me. I felt the wood being lifted off of me, it was a great relief.
"We are such idiots," I groaned, squinting in the suddenly too bright sunlight.
"Yeah, sorry," Wheatley whispered, kneeling beside me.
"Have you broken anything?"
"I think... I've broken my... Collarbone," I managed to say between sharp intakes of agonised gasps. I focused my eyes on Wheatley, and noticed a large scratch across his cheek.
"What about you?" I asked, concerned.
"Nah, nothing more than a few little scratches, it's you we need to worry about."
Wheatley POV - Okay, I had more than just a few scratches. I could feel a wet patch welling up on my side, and tried to turn inconspicuously so Rick wouldn't notice the blood rapidly appearing on my white shirt. It hurt a lot, and I realised it was probably quite deep. But I would have to deal with it, Rick had come out of this sustaining far worse injuries. I didn't know what to do, and it worried me. I could see him closing his eyes, and I wondered if I should let him black out or not. By the time I decided I shouldn't let him, Rick had been out for quite a while. No matter what I did, I couldn't wake him. Rick was still as a statue, and when I touched his arm gently, he was as cold and hard as marble. My eyes widened with fear, and I sank my hand into my pocket, searching for my phone. I needed to call an ambulance, and I needed to call one immediately. However, the inside of my pocket was lined with sharp glass shards and little bits of metal. When I lifted my hand, it returned full of a completely crushed phone. I threw it across the garden angrily, then practically pulled my hair out with stress and frustration. I didn't know what to do. Rick was out cold, he could've been in a coma for all I knew, and my phone was definitely out of use.
"Don't go anywhere," I said to Rick, on the off chance that he could hear me and had the ability to stand up and walk. I turned from Rick's unnaturally broken body, and sprinted through the house, out of the front door, and down the street. People gave me strange looks, this wasn't the first time they've seen me covered in blood around here. Except last time I had just escaped Aperture with Chell, and had much worse injuries, like a punctured chest and deep knife slashes on both hands.
Out of breath and panting like a dog, I rounded the corner into my old street. They had rebuilt the house I previously burned down, and it was now for sale. I charged straight past it, and into the nursery where Chell worked. Barging in, I found myself surrounded by little kids playing with toys and running around. All of a sudden, they stopped, and looked at me with fear and confusion. I dodged around the little humans, embarrassed, and found my way to Chell, who was playing cars with some little blonde haired boy. The boy glanced up at me, and smiled. I returned the kind gesture, then began talking in a rush.
"Chell, something awful has happened! You know I was in the treehouse with Rick? Well it fell down and Rick's unconscious and I can't wake him and I tried to ring an ambulance but my phone got smashed when I fell and I've cut my side pretty badly I think, well it's bleeding a lot to say the least! I came to you because I didn't know what to do!"
Chell's expression turned to one of worry, and she opened and closed her mouth several times before she actually managed to speak.
"Wheatley why didn't you use the house phone?"
"Didn't know we had one. Anyway so what should I do?"
"Stay here a second, I'll ask my boss if I can leave work early, then we'll run home and call the emergency services at Rick's so we will be with him when the ambulance arrives." and with that Chell swiftly strode across the nursery, and knocked hastily on one of the side doors before entering.
I sat down next to the little boy with a sigh, my side hurting quite a lot now.
"What's your name?" the young boy asked me shyly, tapping my elbow to get my attention.
"Wheatley," I replied with a weak smile. This kid seemed quite friendly, and didn't treat me like a weirdo.
"I'm Tommy," he said, smiling toothily back. I noticed he had two front teeth missing, and I wondered who punched them out. Seemed a bit extreme, he's only about four.
"Hi Tommy, what are you playing then?" I asked curiously, picking up a tiny little toy car.
"I'm playing racing, you have to push the car as hard as you can and whoever's car goes the furthest wins," Tommy explained carefully, having a bit of difficulty with his speech. Inspecting the car, I held it upside-down and opened and closed the little doors. What an odd custom, humans really are a strange species.
"Will you play with me?" he asked suddenly. "Chell's gone so I can't play with her anymore."
"Sure," I said, turning my toy car the right way up and shoving it across the room. It went pretty far, and I felt quite proud. Tommy looked up at me with awe, as he released his car. It managed to clear about half the distance of mine.
"Wow you're better than Chell at this," Tommy observed, laughing slightly. I smiled at him, and vowed to let him win this round. I mildly tapped the car after Tommy released his second one, letting the young boy win. His grin was infectious. We played toy cars companionably, and even started a conversation at the same time.
"Is that blood?" Tommy asked curiously, pointing to the red splashes on my shirt.
"No, it's... Err... Red paint," I replied, not wanting to scare him.
"Are you Chell's boyfriend?"
"Yeah, I am," I smiled dreamily.
"My mum has a boyfriend, but he's mean to me. You're not mean,"
For a second, anger blinded me. What sort of man would be mean to such a nice little boy? I then felt privileged that this little boy didn't instantly judge me, since he'd had a bad experience already.
"Why, thank you. If he's ever mean to you again, you tell me, alright? I'll fix it for you,"
"Really?" Tommy exclaimed happily, and he gave me a hug. Well tried to, I was far too tall for his little arms to reach around me. The sentiment was still there, and I hugged him back. I was glad to make a new friend, even if it was just a little human. At least he didn't judge me like the adults do.
All of a sudden, Chell came out of what I assumed was her boss' office and made a beeline for me.
"Say goodbye to Wheatley, Tommy, we have to leave now," she told the disappointed child, pulling me onto my feet impatiently. I ruffled Tommy's hair, and we exchanged our farewells.
"See you around," I told him casually, turning for the door. I vaguely recalled him saying 'I hope so'.
After another long run, we made it back to Rick's house, and found him in exactly the same position. Well, almost the same position. He looked even paler, and blood was trickling out of his mouth. I prayed there was a cut on his mouth, and it wasn't internal bleeding. Chell dialled 999 on her mobile, whilst I sat cross legged next to Rick. I wiped the blood from his mouth, his skin was as cold as ice. There was no cut. Internal bleeding. This is all my fault, I'm such a moron. I put everyone in danger just by being near them, I truly am still a monster, even after all these years. Rick might be dying, or at least seriously hurt, and it was all my fault. I felt my heart drop to the centre of the earth, dragging my smile with it. Rick's eyes weren't quite closed, and a thin slit of green reflected from his eyes in the bright sunlight, turning his eyelashes and lower eyelid emerald. I sighed miserably, and looked down into the dirt until I heard a loud siren pulling up outside our house. I looked up at Rick, and saw he already had more blood trickling from his mouth. His breathing seemed shallower too, getting slower with every exhale. I wiped away a lone tear with a new, brave set to my expression. It was time to face the consequences of my idiocy.
AN/... Chapter 3 complete! I hope it was alright? Sorry to put such a serious chapter in so early in the story, but I need to get that idea out of the way so I can get onto better ones later on... Including a baby ^.^ please review, they are such inspiration and motivation for me =D